USA > New Jersey > Essex County > Newark > A History of the city of Newark, New Jersey : embracing practically two and a half centuries, 1666-1913, Volume I > Part 30
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
There were many misgivings and shakings of heads when this work was begun. It was feared by many that the bridges would interfere with navigation, and it was also solemnly asserted that these structures would so obstruct the flow of water in times of freshets as to do serious damage. The new artery of travel was a tremendous success, of course, and the very next year, a bridge over the Passaic at Belleville, on the site of the present structure, was begun. It cost about $6,000.
TRAVELER WANSEY'S ACCOUNT.
The Newark bridge was looked upon as something little short of a marvel, and the rude road laid down between the two rivers was spoken of by a French traveler in 1796 in the most enthusiastic terms as a remarkable work of American industry and resourceful- ness which European peoples might well strive to emulate. One traveler, Henry Wansey, an Englishman, visited the village just before the bridge was built, and before completing his visit to America came again, the bridge then being in commission. Here is his narrative in which it is noticeable that he, in common with all other strangers, could not refrain from mentioning the mos- quitoes :
"All the way to Newark [from the Hackensack] is a very flat, marshy country, intersected with rivers, many cedar swamps, abounding with musketos, which bit our legs and hands exceedingly ; where they fix, they will continue sucking your blood, if not dis- turbed, till they swell to four times their ordinary size, when they burst from their fulness." 5
THE DOMESTIC SERVANT PROBLEM IN 1794.
Wansey then describes how they "crossed the Passaic in a scoul, by means of pulling a rope fastened on the opposite side. We now came to Newark to breakfast, a pleasant little country town." On his way to the village in the coach he entered into conversation with a Newark lady, who "informed me that the worse circum-
' "An Excursion to the United States," 1794. Henry Wansey, F. A. S.
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stance of living at Newark, was the difficulty of getting domestic servants; they will only agree by the month at very high wages of eight and ten dollars. The white servants generally stipulate that they shall sit at table with their masters and mistresses. *
* Cultivated land here letts for from thirty-six shillings to three pounds per acre."
Concerning his second and last visit to Newark Wansey wrote: "We then came to Newark, about five in the evening. The weather had been uncommonly hot, and I felt myself so uncomfortable that I was glad here to quit the stage and stay till the next day. I opened my portmanteau and changed myself, and having now got a comfortable dish of tea, with plenty of good cream, at the Hounds and Horn, kept by Archer Gifford, I was so well refreshed as to walk over every part of the Town: the streets of which are very wide, with the houses separated from each other by gardens and outlets.
REAL ESTATE VALUES IN 1794.
"It is so increased as to have doubled its inhabitants within the last ten years, and the land has risen in value from ten to thirty pounds an acre. A large manufactory of leather and shoes is car- ried on here. There are four meeting houses or churches, one of which, the 'First Church,' is peculiarly elegant, with a handsome spire, two hundred and two feet high, ninety-seven long, and sixty- six feet in breadth, built of stone."
"Near the top is a gallery on the outside, from whence you have a beautiful view of Staten and Long Island, Hudson's River, New York, &c., &c. A large brick building is now erecting here for a Grammar school; ? one large apartment is already opened for the youth of both sexes to meet and learn to sing.
"As night set in the fireflies afforded constant amusement for my walks. The next morning I went a mile out of the town, to see the new bridge over the Pasaick, erected to avoid the frequent dis- agreeable delays at this ferry. It is neatly framed of wood, with a draw bridge, to let the schooners and other vehicles pass. * *: I remember some very beautiful elevated situations for houses not yet occupied.
" First Presbyterian, Trinity, Moses N. Comb's Congregational Church in Market street, near Plane, and what is now the First Presbyterian in Orange.
1 Newark Academy at Broad and Academy streets.
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"On the green adjoining to Newark, is lately erected a high pole, surmounted with the cap of liberty. * *
* Beds were so scarce at the inn that two of us slept on the floor of the large parlour. The inns are in general very small, travelling not having been very frequent till of late, and the houses only built for private families.
"I went next morning to an exhibition of wild beasts, among which was a buffalo, just brought from Kentucky; it resembled an ill-used cow, and of the colour of an ass.
"There are four or five post chaises kept in this place, and a multitude of one horse chaises, which pay, I think, five shillings a year tax to the State of New Jersey. There is a stage every day in the summer, which sets out at six o'clock in the morning for New York, from Archer Gifford's (fare three shillings currency) and returns again to dinner. It puts up in New York, at the corner of Cortland street and Broadway. It is very convenient for those that live at Newark, and carry on their business at New York.
"There is, I am told, a very genteel neighborhood here, and much tea-visiting. It is also a great thoroughfare and may be reckoned a very neat, pleasent country town."
"ONE OF THE NEATEST AND PRETTIEST TOWNS."
Thomas Twining, one of the founders of the British Empire in India, visited the United States in 1795, while returning on a visit from the far East to his home. He was still under twenty, but was a keen and close observer. He bore letters from Englishmen of eminence to leading Americans. While in Philadelphia he called upon Washington and in his books of "Travels" gave a most inter- esting and minute account of the interview. "In the course of the conversation," says Twining, "I mentioned the particular regard and respect with which Lord Cornwallis always spoke of him. He received this communication in the most courteous manner, inquired about his lordship, and expressed for him much esteem."
A day or so later this young Briton, who counted the day upon which he talked with Washington one of the most memorable in his life, left Philadelphia and proceeded across New Jersey to New York, by stage, over much of the very ground upon which Wash- ington and Twining's friend, Lord Cornwallis had struggled for the mastery, less than twenty years before. Our own Newark seems
VIEW OF NEWARK, EAST OF BROAD STREET. 1790
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
to have awakened in him much of the same enthusiasm that it did in nearly all the other travelers.
"Seven miles farther, beyond Elizabeth, we came to Newark," he wrote, "which I thought one of the neatest and prettiest towns I had ever seen. I was told that many families of Dutch extraction lived here, and it appeared that they kept up their national habits of order and cleanliness. I was struck with the pleasant situation of some white detached houses which I observed on some high ground a few hundred yards to the left of the road. I told my com- panions that if I settled in America I should be induced to prefer that spot to any I had seen." This was unquestionably the High street section.
Twining misinterpreted the old Puritan love of decency and order as the handiwork of the Dutch, who were never in sufficient numbers in this neighborhood to impress their personality upon the village, materially. Upon leaving Newark, the stage horses became unmanageable in descending the then steep hill from Broad street to the Bridge street bridge. He jumped from the stage, together with some of his fellow passengers, and narrowly escaped being run over. The runaways were not checked until they had crossed the bridge, dragging the swaying coach behind them.
"Four miles farther," he continues, "we came to a bridge over the Hackinsack, a small river that runs into Newark Bay. Two miles farther the country became low and wet, having the appear- ance of a great swamp, formed by the inundation of the Hudson, which we were now approaching, or by the encroachment of the waters of Raritan Bay, which may be considered the Chesapeake of the Jersey State. The road across this marsh was formed by trees laid across it and covered with earth. Though we went slowly here, the jolting, as the wheels passed from tree to tree was very great. After a mile and a half of this most rough road we arrived at Pawles Hook, situated on the edge of New York Bay, and immediately opposite that city. * * Here we embarked in a large boat, and the wind being favorable, had a fine sail across the bay, whose width exceeded two miles. The view of New York
Y
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
in front, of the more expanded bay and three small islands to the right, and the Hudson on our left, was magnificent. I could neither conceal nor express the surprise and delight it afforded me."
THE MOSQUITO PEST IN 1679 AND 1748.
The first visitors to Newark who left any record, came in 1679, but thirteen years after the settlement. They were two Frisian travelers who rowed around in a small boat from New York and . proceeded from Bergen Point under the guidance of an Indian. They passed a night in what is now Harrison and the next day explored the river as far as Passaic Falls. They remarked that the English settlement of "Milfort" or "Milford" as Newark was then frequently called, was on high ground, which shows that few if any of the settlers had up to that time made their homes anywhere near the lower marshy regions. They also noted that: "The river.of the Northwest Kil [Passaic] is the pleasentest we have yet seen. It is gratifying to look upon the continually changing views which present themselves in going either up or down, with its evergreens of pine or cedar and other species, * and its clear bottom and clear, fresh water." >
And then, a little later, in telling of an expedition along Staten Island and in the neighborhood of Elizabethtown: "Nowhere in the country had we been so pestered with mosquitoes as we were on this road."
"The people hereabouts,"" wrote another wanderer, an able scientist, in this region, "are said to be troubled in summer with immense swarms of gnats or mosquetoes, which sting them and their cattle. This was ascribed to the long, swampy meadows, on which these insects deposit their eggs."
"It is a handsome flourishing town, * This town has the fame of making the best cyder in the world," said Morse's
Journal of n voyage to New York and a tour of the American Colonies In 1679-80. By Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter. The correct spelling of "mosquitoes" Is due to the translator, no doubt.
" Travels Into North America, 1748. Vol. i, p. 183.
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
Geography in 1792. Newark was known the civilized world over for its mosquitoes and its cider, for many generations. The town's shoemaking had also begun to attract attention as we have seen in the notes of a traveler already mentioned. In a tour lasting from 1798 to 1802, John Davis, an Englishman, wrote of Newark, "The houses of Newark are generally shaded by clusters of trees," and it "is famed for the richest cider and probably the largest cobblers' stall in the United States of America."
"Newark is built in a straggling manner," wrote still another, "and has very much the appearance of a large English village. There is agreeable society in this town. * * Elizabethtown and Newark are both cheerful, lively-looking places, whose tall spires appear very beautiful as you approach at a distance, peeping above the woods with which they are encircled." 10
"ONE OF THE FINEST VILLAGES IN AMERICA."
"It is one of the finest villages in America," wrote an enthusias- tic Frenchman in 1795.11 "It consists of one very long and very broad street, the sides of which are planted thick with rows of trees, and which is composed of many handsome houses. These are all of brick or wood, and every one of them has behind it a neat garden.
"Newark is the usual stage for the mail coaches and for trav- elers passing between Philadelphia and New York. There are of a consequence a number of good inns in this place. This part of the country is particularly famous for its cyder, which is greatly superior to that product in other parts of Jersey ; though even the rest of Jersey cyder be preferable to whatever is produced anywhere else in America, even to the cyder of Virginia which is reckoned exceedingly good.
"A shoemaker who manufactures shoes for exportation em- ploys here between three hundred and four hundred workmen, almost one-half of the inhabitants of the town. The number of these has been greatly augmented by the influx of families which the late massacres have driven from St. Domingo and the other
" "Travels Through the States" of North America, 1795-97, by Isaac Weld, jr.
" Duke de la Rochefancault Liancourt's Travels Through the United States, 1795-97. Vol. li, pp. 360-362.
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
French islands. Coming from New York we are obliged to pass through a tract of exceedingly swampy ground. A road was, about a year since constructed, for the first time through the morass. It consists of trees having their branches cut away, disposed longitudinally one beside another, and lightly covered with earth. This road is, of course, still very disagreeable to the traveler, and very difficult for carriages. Though on horseback I was little annoyed by this inconvenience. I was disagreeably sensible of its disadvantageous narrowness which is such that two carriages cannot pass one another upon it, and that two persons meeting on horseback, cannot easily avoid jostling one another.
"This illy constructed and far too narrow causeway has cost a great expense. It is three miles long and has at each end a broad wooden bridge of strong and handsome construction. The toll exacted at the bridges is intended to defray the expense of the road.
"The way between Newark and Elizabethtown leads through an agreeable country, adorned with good houses and farms, having a pleasing aspect of cultivation. The fields are planted with fruit trees particularly with peach trees, which are very common in Jersey.
"I fell in with a fox-chase in my short journey on this road. It is a common diversion with the gentlemen of Jersey, at least in these parts, and here, as in England, everyone joins in the chase, who either has a horse of his own, or can borrow one. I should almost have thought at first sight that I was in Suffolk; but both dogs and horses have a much more indifferent appearance than those I should, there, have seen."
Those were times of bloody turmoil in France and many a Frenchman of noble family fled to America, which had so lately and so gloriously won its independence, as an asylum of safety. Not a few busied themselves as did the Duke de la Rochefaucault Lian- court, just quoted, in gathering information for works of travel. Another wanderer from France at this time was J. P. Brissot de Warville who, while in the Newark neighborhood found much to interest him. His remarks concerning the traffic system of the time are especially interesting : 12
"The carriage is a kind of open wagon, hung with double cur- tains of leather and woolen, which you raise and let fall at pleasure ; it is not well suspended. * *
* The horses are good and go with rapidity. These carriages have four benches and may contain
12 New Travels in the United States of America. By J. P. Brissot de Warville. London, 1794. See second edition. Voi. i, pp. 142-144.
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
twelve persons. The light baggage is put under the benches, and the trunks fixed on behind. A traveler who does not choose to take the stage has a one-horse carriage by himself. * * * Notwith- standing the inconvenience of the roads they now run ninety-five miles a day.
"You find in these stages men of all professions. They succeed each other with rapidity. One who goes twenty miles yields his place to one who goes farther. The mother and daughter mount the stage to go ten miles to dine; another stage brings them back. At every instant you are making new acquaintances. The frequency of these carriages, the facility of finding places in them, and the low and fixed prices invite Americans to travel."
The stages aroused no enthusiasm in Charles William Jansen who thus described them in his "The Stranger in America," pub- lished in London in 1807:
"Having been safely ferried over to Paulus Hook, a miserable place, all the New York stages and horses for proceeding toward the Southern states being kept there, we saw a number of waggons with horses yoked, ready to depart; and the groups of passengers assembled, being truly a curious scene. I now mounted for the first time an American stage, literally a kind of light wagon. While I attempt to describe this clumsy and uncomfortable machine, I cannot suppress a wish of being possessed of one of them, with the horses, harness and driver, just as we set off, in order to convert them into an exhibition in London, I should not doubt of their proving as attractive and as lucrative as Lunardi and the Pantheon, with his balloon and his quadruped companions in his first aeried voyage over the city. * *
"The vehicle, which is of the same construction throughout the country, is calculated to hold twelve persons, who all sit on benches placed across with their faces toward the horses. The front seat always holds three, one of whom is the driver, and as there are no doors at the sides [or back], the passengers get in over the front wheels and take their seats as they enter; the first, of course, get seats behind the rest. This is the most esteemed seat, because you can rest your shaken frame against the back part of the wagon. Women are therefore endulged with it, and it is often laughable to see them crawling to their seats; and if they happen to be late they often have to straddle over the men who are seated further in front. * *
"It [the stage] is covered with leather and instead of windows there are flaps of that article, which in bad weather are secured by buckles and straps."
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
THE VILLAGE BEAUTIFUL.
For many years previous to and throughout the War for Inde. pendence Elizabeth had vied with Newark in importance. Elizabeth lost all chances for superiority from the very hour that the first bridge over the Passaic in Newark, was put in commission. Newark at once was placed on the main line of travel across New Jersey. Elizabeth was, indeed, doomed to recede steadily into a second place. Newark showed to better advantage than Elizabeth when approached from across the marshes. Newark rested complacently on the higher ground. Its bosky hillsides were dotted with sheep in summer time, and its substantial homes, usually but a story and one-half high were half hidden in honeysuckle and other vines. Every home of any pretensions had its garden and its orchard. More than one poetic soul sprang into rhapsodies of verse at the beauty of the village in spring when the peach trees were in bloom. All this was part of the heritage from the founders, the Pilgrim pioneers, who insisted on decency and order from the beginning, whose scrupulous exactness in all their personal dealings was reflected in the system and symmetry of their town's physical aspect. It was truly a New England village in all its outward semblance, so deep and potent were the Puritan characteristics even after the passing of nearly one hundred and fifty years and in spite of the fearful ravages of a long and bitter war, which in Essex County, as throughout the greater part of the State, possessed many of the elements of a civil war.
But a new life was stirring. The talents wrapped in a napkin, as it were, for so many generations, were now to begin the process of increasing many, many fold; a process which now, in the twen- tieth century, may be said to at last be in full operation.
THE DAY OF THE STAGE COACH, 1794-1840.
From the opening of the bridges over the Passaic and Hack- ensack in 1794 until the coming of the first railroad early in the 1830's (a period of about forty years) may be termed the era of the stage coach. Previous to the war the land communications with
A PLAN OF THE PRINCIPAL PART OF BROAD ST., NEWARK, SHOWING THE BUILD- INGS AND OCCUPANTS ABOUT THE YEAR 1796 ..
-.. Episcopal Parsonage. -- Dr. Griffiths.
Episcopal Church
-- Robert Young.
Jubn Woody, Newark Gazette Office.
John Nesbit, Farmer ..
-Pointer flouse, and carpenter's shop.
P Hill's residence, afterwards Rev Dr. Ogden ..
Mrs. Hatfield .-
G. Pintard, gentleman.
Caleb Baldwin
Judge Elisha Boudinut.
Caleb Suyres.
Jon. Sayrey.
Benjamin Johnson. 1.
Academy ...
Gifford cot, afterwards Win. T'utile
W. Rodger's house and saddlery ...
Thuioss Jones' store. ".
Jasper Tenbrouk, house and store.
9. Smith Burnet, watch store.
4 Pennington and Bruen's store.
Archer Gifford'e singe bouse and tavern. ST.
MARKET
Jesse Baldwin, house and store.
Jabez Parkhurst.
Jinh Congar's stare.
5. Johnson Tutth's tavern'
6. Old Presbyterian Church.
Old County Jail, -
Luther Goble, shoemaker
Major Samuel Sayres, tavern.
10. Rev. Dr. Mi'W hurter's parsonage.
7. Alez. C. M.Whorter, Inwyer.
Jabez Breu, shoemaker. HILL ST. Peter Hall.
Joseph Banks, Hatter.
Sammet Congar, weaver. Matthias and C'aleb Bruen, cabinet shop.
Calch Breen's residence.
Josinh Beach, farmwer and weaver.
Eleazar Brown.
Judge William Barnet. 3
H Mon. Peter J. Van Hareket.
Juseph Camp, farmer.
Capt. Nathaniel Camp.
1. Afterwards used, for several successive years as a post office by Matth. Day.
2. Grn. Cumouings was a coloner in the Revolutionary ariay, and President of a bank mu Newark, which was the first established in New Jersey .
3. Judge Burnet was a distinguished surgeon In the Revolutionary army.
4. Witham S. Pennington was Governor of New Jersey in I>13 : he was the father of Wmn. Penning-
ton, Jate Governor of the State .- John Allung's blacksmith shop was next to his store.
5. Now Stuart's Hotel.
6. The old Pre-by traian Church, after the erection of the new one, was used as a court house, and the old court house as a jail.
7. Now the Mansion House.
8. Hon. Peter J Van Brackel was minlater pienipotentiary from Holland to the D'nited States.
9. Wmn. Gardner's barber shop adjoined of way next to Smith Burget's watch store. 10. Col. Aarou Burr was born in this house.
Dr. Uzal Johnson.
-Ogden Mansion. . -Gen. John & Cumthings. 2.
" John Burnet, postmaster.
Obuhab Crane.
Col. Hay's house and store.
Office of the Sentinel of Freedom, by Pru- ington and Dadgr. New Presbyterian Church,
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
New York by way of Paulus Hook, were over the original Plank Road, along Market street, more or less closely following the present Ferry street; the route on the Hackensack meadows, (once the rude ferry was crossed) being pretty accurately defined to-day by the Plank Road trolley cars. The old Schuyler road, which as already told, was built by John Schuyler as an outlet for the ore from his copper mine, furnished an avenue to the Hackensack and on to Paulus Hook for Belleville and the other settlements north and northwest of Newark. It is said, by the way, that the original Schuyler roadbed was laid by several hundred sailors from vessels of the British fleet lying at anchor in New York harbor a decade or so before the War for Independence.
Between the Hackensack and Passaic bridges the road was a very rough and crude affair. Stretches of it were washed by the high tide and it required skillful charioteering on the part of the coach drivers to keep their vehicles right side up. Passengers often preferred to walk. Much of the way was through a dense and dark cedar forest, a prime place for highwaymen to ply their trade. So pestiferous did these gentry become that stage hold-ups were by no means uncommon. In the second decade of the last century, about 1816, a mail stage was robbed, and it was not long afterward that the cutting away of the forest began.13
THE NEW YORK-PHILADELPHIA LINES.
By 1800 there were several stages which went to New York every morning, early, except Sunday, and returned in the afternoon. There was a New York-Philadelphia stage, at this time also, passing through Newark, and reaching Philadelphia by way of Somerville. About 1810 there were no less than four stage lines between the two large cities, using the Hackensack and Passaic bridges, General John N. Cumming of Newark being one of the chief proprietors, as well as holding the government contract to move the mail across
12 In June, 1799, the private carriage of the British Minister to the United States, who was on his way to Washington, was beset by robbers, "as it was passing through a little wood on Barbadoes Neck. Two port- manteanx were cut from behind and taken off."
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HISTORY OF NEWARK
the State. The first or "Pilot" stage, left Paulus Hook at 5 in the morning, carried seven passengers at $10 a head, and reached Philadelphia the following morning, early. At seven in the morn- ing the "Commercial" stage left Paulus Hook, reached Trenton late the same day and the next morning proceeded to Philadelphia, reach- ing there about 11 o'clock that morning. The fare was $6, but, of course the cost of night accommodations at Trenton left little dif- ference between the two rates, although the break in the trip made it more comfortable. At one in the afternoon the "Mail," (the Congressional Limited of its day) left Paulus Hook, carried six passengers at $10 each, and after traveling most if not all of the night, rumbled into Philadelphia at six in the morning. Then there was the "Expedition" line coach, which started at 5 in the afternoon, put up for the night at Bridgeton and arrived at Philadelphia the following afternoon.
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